CAROLEE BENNETT SHERWOOD

a poem inspired by the post of a facebook friend

In trying to write today, I had two bits in my journal I wanted to use: the slow, hesitating snow and the image of throwing a mannequin into a dumpster. I had no idea what I would do with them until I saw a Facebook friend was taking down her Christmas tree just today. I’ve always imagined those discarded trees as abandoned bodies. And since her tree was artificial, this weird little piece was born.

I may take it to class tomorrow (#1 because I have nothing else to bring and #2 because it’s so weird I’d love to see what happens to it in workshop).

Totally feel you on the trees-as-bodies thing; wrote a poem about their piney corpses once too. But this is so much more than that… my instincts say this is an excellent feminist poem, but I don’t know enough about the philosophy to declare that. What I do know is that every line grips, and that ending is priceless.